Customer Reviews:
 Cairns, Celts and curraghs October 22, 2005
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Few authors match Mowat's finesse at merging history and fiction. An offshoot from his earlier work on the Vikings, this book displaces the Norsemen as the earliest European colonists of North America. Mowat's expressive talents are given free rein to question consensus history and propose a new thesis - even before the Norsemen, Scottish exiles reached this continent long ago. Mowat is quick to assert his ideas are speculative. He offers good evidence that he's seen directly or researched. The force of his narrative skills submerge that disclaimer almost to obscurity as he presents a mixture of fact and fantasy throughout this book. It's a rewarding read, and the validity of his conjecture may be deferred until you close the final page. Mowat's speculation on Scot explorers reaching the New World begins with a stone ruin in the Canadian Arctic. The unusual shape indicates the roofing material was a large boat. Houses of this oblong form can still be found in the outer islands of Scotland. As Mowat notes, the technique is testimony to efficient use and durability of the materials. The early people of Western Europe and the British Isles built long-lasting boats using a strong wood frame and easily replaceable skins. Strong and seaworthy, they put to sea in these boats for distant voyages. More distant, in Mowat's view, than we've previously conceived.
He proposes that settlements dotted the Eastern Arctic and along the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. The communities were founded by the descendents of the "valuta men" who first sought walrus tusks. The ivory was valuable and found ready markets. But the walrus herds died out or moved elsewhere. Meanwhile, population shifts in Europe put pressure on the home communities of these voyagers. They were driven to Northern Scotland, Iceland, Greenland and, finally, the Canadian shores. When they went, stone beacons for both sea and land navigation were erected to become their legacy in the New World. All these events pre-dated the legenday Leif Ericson's "discovery" of Vinland in the 11th Century. Whatever the validity of Mowat's assertions, and he puts them forward vigorously, the story he tells merits further attention. Weaving a fictional account of the voyagers' lives and motivations through the historical text is a novel approach. With Mowat, the technique is superbly successful. If the book only forces further research by unpredjudiced investigators, it will have been worth the writing. It is clearly worth the reading. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
 An interesting tale woven around very little data January 31, 2003
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
In 1990, Farley Mowat wrote a book about the Vikings in Greenland and North America. After that book, he began to doubt the conclusion that the Vikings were the first Europeans to visit these areas. This book is his reconstruction of history, based on the conclusion that these first "Farfarers" were the pre-Indo-European people remembered as the Armoricans, the Picts, and the builders of the Hebridean broch. This work is an interesting combination of an essay, and a fictional account of Farfarers throughout history.When I began this book, I enjoyed it immensely. His stories of Romans and Picts really caught my imagination. However, later I began to find his argument less and less plausible. His rewriting of the Icelandic Sagas seemed quite strange to me. And worse, his contention that the existence of the North American continent was widely known in Europe in the 11th century struck me as frightfully implausible. Therefore, let me say that while this is an entertaining book, I found it far from convincing.
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